EFF has delivered a letter to Washington Governor Jay Inslee today, urging him to sign into law EHB 2789 to establish a reasonable set of rules under which drones may be operated in the state. The bill, which has already passed through the state House and Senate, creates a requirement for law enforcement agencies to obtain warrants in most cases, and additionaly sets up a data minimization framework and short retention limit. From our letter to the governor:

Customs & Border Protection recently “discovered” additional daily flight logs that show the agency has flown its drones on behalf of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies on 200 more occasions more than previously released records indicated.

The historicdecision handed down by D.C. federal judge Richard Leon last week that found the NSA's bulk collection of phone records likely violated the Fourth Amendment is a crucial first step towards protecting digital privacy from suspicionless government searches. But the importance of the decision extends beyond the NSA's surveillance programs. Judge Leon made two important findings on how the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches should apply at a time when technology can make invasive surveillance -- once considered the stuff of science fiction -- a part of every day life.

Commercial unmanned aerial systems are set to start flying over US airspace in 2015. In November, the Federal Aviation Administration released its final privacy rules for the six drone “test sites” that the agency will use to evaluate how drones will be integrated into domestic air traffic. These new privacy requirements were issued just days after Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a new bill, the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act, intended to codify essential privacy and transparency requirements within the FAA's regulatory framework for domestic drones and drone test sites.